Tips to break through 'bad karma'

“That’s bad for your karma” has probably been said to you when you did something that you knew was just not right. Throwing a piece of paper on the street, stubbornly ignoring that one colleague, accidentally not inviting your mother-in-law, eating your child’s bag of M&Ms... You name it. But what exactly is karma? And why is karma ‘ab*tch’ (only if you are)? Here is some clarification, a video and tips for breaking your ‘bad karma’.

Where does karma come from?

The term 'karma' comes from Hinduism and Buddhism and means 'action' in Sanskrit. It is also called the law of cause and effect. In other words: every action you do has a consequence for life. Compare it to a stone that you throw into still water. The effect of this spreads over the entire surface of the water.

Good and bad karma

Suppose you steal the last piece of banana bread from your colleague. Then you get a stomach ache and have to run to the toilet. Bad karma. Karma always comes back to you. But does it really work that way? And can you score karma points if you do something nice for someone else? Yes, when it comes to karma, but it goes a bit further than that...

Aha, that's how it works

Imagine that with every action you plant a seed. As Vipassana teacher SN Goenka says: “An apple seed does not grow into a pear tree, the kind of seed determines the kind of plant. So if you do something ‘bad’, you cannot expect anything good to come out of it. Or the other way around. For example, people who are open and generous create more goodwill around them than people who think only of themselves.”

The law of attraction

So it comes down to being mindful in what you do, say and think - also with regard to your unconscious beliefs or feelings. Because no matter how loudly we shout how successful we are, if we don't believe it unconsciously, you jinx yourself just as hard. That's exactly how the law of attraction works. Other examples: 'nobody loves me', 'people leave me'. If that's your deep inner belief, it will unconsciously influence the situation in such a way that something similar happens again and again and the feeling is relived.

💡 Feelings are strong karmic forces and can therefore be held on to for a long time. 

So if life seems to be deliberately getting you down, people keep treating you like dirt, you keep tripping over your own shoelaces, or over more serious matters… Try looking back: from effect, to cause, to action. Maybe it’s not karma that’s the b*tch after all…

Break your 'bad karma'

According to Marnix van Rossum, who studied Buddhism for many years, this breaks your karmic patterns:

1. take responsibility for the things that happen in your own life,
2. observe and accept your feelings and tendencies, without immediately taking them as truth,
3. experience your underlying beliefs ,
4. be open to other people's opinions, even if the ones you have seem true,
5. teach yourself an attitude of inquiry and interest . Nothing is wrong, everything is a moment to become wiser,
6. learn to accept changes and practice letting go like Elsa

Here is another interesting video about karma

How is your karma?

Source: Mathijs van der Beek and Mindfulness.in
Cover photo by Elia Pellegrini via Unsplash